User Interfaces & HUDs

The way in which the game communicates and interacts with the player is extremely important. User interfaces (UIs) and heads-up displays (HUDs) are the games way of providing information about the game to the player and in some cases allowing the player to interact with the game.

Unreal Engine 3 provides multiple means of creating UIs and HUDs. The Canvas class can be used to draw directly to the screen at a low level, overlayed onto the world. Scaleform GFx is also integrated into the engine and provides a complete menu and HUD solution using professional-grade tools such as Adobe Flash Professional. For mobile games, there is also a mobile menu system built on top of the Canvas functionality that provides the ability to create menus using touch input.